ANAHEIM – Pitching was supposed to be the one area where the Angels had a clear advantage over the Texas Rangers in the race for the AL West this season.

It might be time to re-think that.

Alexi Ogando and Darren Oliver combined on a four-hit shutout as the Texas Rangers remained the hottest team in baseball, beating the Angels, 7-0, on Tuesday night for their 12th consecutive victory.

The 12-game winning streak is the longest in the majors since the Boston Red Sox also won 12 consecutive games June 16-29, 2006.

The Angels’ fourth loss in five games since returning from the All-Star break dropped them five games behind the Rangers in the AL West, their largest deficit since a 25-game surge before the break started on June 13. The Angels have been outscored 27-11 in the past five games.

“What we really need is internal,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “We need to get into our game. We were doing it for a long time before the break. It’s been tough these past two series.

“We had a little more (offensive) continuity going before the break. We weren’t killing the ball, but we had some guys driving the ball. We were hitting a few home runs and we were doing the situational things that we need to do. Since we came out of the break, it’s been tough to get it going.”

Since returning from the four-day break, the Angels’ offense has definitely returned to pre-surge levels. In their five games since the break, the Angels have scored a total of 11 runs while batting .177 as a team (29 for 164), including .139 (5 for 36) with runners in scoring position, and struck out 47 times.

Ogando’s dominant performance was the 11th time the Angels have been shut out this season.

Most of those numbers were built during a four-game series in Oakland against an A’s pitching staff that has the lowest ERA in the majors (3.10). Things didn’t get any easier against a Rangers team that has joined the AL West’s arms race during their 12-game winning streak.

The Rangers have an ERA of 1.92 during their winning streak and have allowed just two runs in their past six games, a stretch that now includes four shutouts. Opposing batters have hit just .146 (29 for 199) against the Rangers’ starting pitchers in those six games with only six extra-base hits (all doubles).

“We’ve faced some good pitching, but there aren’t any excuses in this game,” Howie Kendrick said. “You’ve got to perform. You’ve got to compete. Nobody’s going to cry for you.”

Tuesday’s shutout came with former Angels catcher Mike Napoli – traded away, in part, because of Angels manager Mike Scioscia’s dissatisfaction with his defensive work – behind the plate for the Rangers.

Napoli has caught shutouts in three of his past four starts behind the plate with just one run scoring in his past 37 innings caught. His catcher’s ERA – a statistic that Napoli felt Scioscia used to castigate him over the years – in 25 starts for the Rangers is 2.43, the lowest in the American League for any catcher with at least 20 starts.

“I thought I brought it to the table there. But obviously they thought they had to make a move,” said Napoli who also reached base four times Tuesday (two walks, a single and a double). “I learned a lot when I was there. It was weird to walk in on the other side today, but I’m a Texas Ranger now and I love it here. This is my new home and my new team, and I’m the enemy now.

“I definitely wanted to come out here and do what I did tonight. To have the type of game I had feels good inside.”

The Angels managed just four hits in eight innings against Ogando, and they squandered the only two scoring opportunities they had.

Mark Trumbo dropped a double into right field leading off the third inning. But he was stranded at third and Torii Hunter at second that inning.

In the fifth, the Angels managed to avoid scoring despite getting back-to-back doubles by Erick Aybar and Trumbo leading off the inning. Aybar was out at third on a misguided attempt to stretch his drive to the wall in left-center into a triple. Trumbo was stuck at second while Jeff Mathis struck out and Maicer Izturis popped out.

The Angels didn’t have another hit in the game.

“That was a little aggressive with the game situation, being down three,” Scioscia said of Aybar’s risk. “The play was in front of him so you have a misread, a little overaggressiveness there. That play was unfortunate.

“Erick is going to create a lot of things with his aggressiveness. In that case, he was a little too adventurous.”

Tyler Chatwood returned from Triple-A Salt Lake with an erratic start against the Rangers, walking four and allowing seven hits. Despite the 11 baserunners in just five innings, Chatwood held the Rangers to just single runs in the first, fourth and fifth, stranding six runners, getting one double and two players thrown out in rundowns between third base and home plate.

The Rangers added four more late runs on home runs by Endy Chavez, Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre off reliever Michael Kohn.